The Extra Yard (3 page)

“It's who he is,” she said. “It's who he's always been. Maybe that's why he's such a good salesman. He thinks presentation is everything.”

“He actually thinks that was the way to announce he was coming back here?”

“He always loved drama, too.”

“So now he's brought it all the way across the country,” Teddy said. “Maybe we should have given him a standing O yesterday.”

“You're going to have to get used to it. We both are.”

“I like things the way they are, Mom,” Teddy said. “I never felt cheated because I didn't live with both parents. I had you.”

“You're sweet.”

He grinned, feeling like himself for a minute. “Let's not get carried away.”

“I never asked you last night,” she said. “How did it go when it was just the two of you talking?”

“Once he got past telling me how excited he was to be back, he pretty much had nothing. Other than asking me to give him a second chance.”

“You have to,” she said.

“No, I don't,” Teddy said. “I didn't get a vote when he left, I didn't get a vote when he decided to move back. This is one thing I get to decide. He doesn't get to play dad now because it will make him feel better.”

“I'm more interested in what you're feeling,” she said.

“I don't think you need to be a mind reader to figure that out.”

There was a silence between them. Both of them were done eating. Neither made a move to clear their plates. It was as if they had reached some kind of standoff. Teddy just wasn't sure about what.

He said, “I can't believe he shows up right before tryouts.”

“I'm not asking you to be thrilled, Teddy. I'm not asking you to even like it right now. But what I'm asking you to do is try to make this work for me.”

Teddy slapped his hand on the table. “I'm supposed to be nice to him for
you
?” he said. “When was
he
ever nice to you?”

There was another silence. Usually he loved this time with his mom. He would tell her about his day. She'd tell him about hers. They were both good talkers. He felt like he'd inherited that from her, the way he'd inherited whatever else that was good in him.

Alexis Madden would ask Teddy sometimes—though not so much lately—if he could remember things they'd done as a family when David Madden was still around. Teddy would answer truthfully: No. He really couldn't. He didn't know if it was because he was too little, or because he was trying to block those memories out.

“Teddy,” she said, “I know it's hard, but . . .”

She reached across the table and covered Teddy's hand with her own.

“Promise me you'll try to be open-minded,” she said. “And openhearted. I know it's asking a lot. But this isn't him asking. It's me.”

He stared at her, afraid she might start to cry. What he did remember, from the time his dad left, as young as he'd been? He remembered his mom crying a lot.

“I'll try,” he said. “I can't promise that this deal is going to work out the way he might want it to. But I'll try.”

She told him she'd clean up; he should go upstairs and rest. He had a big day tomorrow.

“I don't know how many more big days I can stand this week,” Teddy said.

•  •  •

He thought about calling Jack when he got upstairs, but after the dock, and after dinner with his mom, he was talked out for today. As he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not even paying attention to the songs he was listening to on his speakers, he kept coming back to this one thought:

Having a dad in his life
was
something that should have made him happy.

He had real friends now, he had teammates, he had football, he'd been good enough in sports, in a pretty short time, to have been the starting catcher on a team that played in the Little League World Series. Now he had a shot at making the Wildcats, and if Jack Callahan was right—and he was usually right about sports—he had a chance to be the team's starting tight end. Having a dad should have been like icing on top of a big old cake.

Not everybody he knew at Walton Middle School had a full-time dad in their lives. A couple of other kids who'd be starting eighth grade with him had divorced parents. But most kids he knew, and most of the guys he played sports with, usually had a dad around to cheer them on.

He'd never needed a dad before. He didn't need one tomorrow at Holzman Field.

He just wanted to make the team.

T
eddy was more grateful than ever that Jack had worked him out as hard as he had since the end of baseball.

Because the tryouts were beyond intense.

“I think this is what guys in the Marines call basic training,” Gus said to Teddy and Jack about an hour into it. “And we're not even in pads today!”

“No,” Teddy said, “I think basic training would feel like a vacation compared to this.”

“Do I hear complaining?” Jack said.

“Just making an observation,” Teddy said. “A very, very tired observation, and we've only been here an hour.”

“You just
think
you're tired,” Jack said. “Actually you're about to catch your second wind.”

“If I am trying to catch it,” Teddy said, “I hope it's not moving too quickly.”

They had just run sprints and intervals and laps so far, being watched and evaluated by parents from Walton Town Football who didn't have a son trying out for the team. And they were being watched by the man who'd coach the Wildcats, Dick Gilbert.

Andre Williams's dad, Malik, an outside linebacker who'd gone from Walton High to Wake Forest to the pros for a few seasons, was observing from the stands. He wasn't allowed to officially evaluate because Andre was trying out, even though Mr. Williams was going to be Coach Gilbert's defensive coordinator. But everybody was pretty sure that Andre, who'd been a pitcher and outfielder on the Rays, was going to be a starter at outside linebacker—and a star at the position—the same as his dad.

After all the running, they moved to agility drills. One was called the step over. Blocking bags were set up a few feet apart, and the players had to run through the bags, high-stepping over them the way they would a downed blocker during a game. Coach Gilbert told them that when he'd been a wide receiver at Walton High, getting over players who'd been blocked to the ground was called “getting through the trash.”

“Of course, once the season starts,” he said, “the trash on the ground will be somebody else's, not ours.”

When they came back from a brief water break, they lined up and zigzagged their way through orange cones that were set up on the field, the parents and Coach Gilbert wanting to see how they could handle quick cuts.

Finally they were separated out by size and the position they wanted to play. Teddy was surprised at how many of the bigger kids said they wanted to play in the line, either offensive or defensive.

But he quickly figured out what was happening: kids
really
wanted to make this team, and not end up in Pop Warner. And even if they secretly wanted to run with the ball or catch it or throw it, they were going for the positions they thought gave them their best chance at making the Walton Wildcats. Coach Gilbert reminded them all, more than once, that the ultimate decision about where guys were going to play would be his.

Gus went over with the wide receivers. Jack had predicted that Gus would probably end up being the kind of slot receiver Victor Cruz had been for the Giants before he hurt his knee.

There were three other kids trying out for tight end with Teddy. One was Mike O'Keeffe, a good guy they'd played against in baseball.

“Good luck,” he said to Teddy when it was time for the receiving drills, and Teddy knew Mike meant it.

“Jack says it's not about luck,” Teddy said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “But he's Jack.”

Every boy trying out today had been given a blue mesh practice jersey with big white numbers on the front and back, to make things easier for the evaluators. By chance Teddy had been given number 81. Megatron's number. Calvin Johnson of the Lions. Teddy didn't care. He was a Giants fan, which meant he was an Odell Beckham Jr. guy.

There were two other kids trying out for quarterback along with Jack. Danny Hayes was an eighth grader and had a good arm, but he was a better runner than he was a passer. And there was a seventh grader who'd just moved to Walton during the summer, a kid named Bruce Kalb. Bruce was almost as big as Teddy and seemed to have a pretty big arm himself. But if he did make the team, the best he could hope for was to be Jack's backup. Nobody was beating out Jack.

When Coach Gilbert walked them down to the other end of the field for the passing and receiving drills, Jack and Gus walked with Teddy.

Jack said, “Just pretend it's the two of us in the outfield.”

“That's going to be hard when you're not the one throwing to me,” Teddy said.

There were going to be three rounds; each quarterback would make the throws in one of them.

“You can still pretend it's me,” Jack said.

“This is going to be cake,” Gus said, grinning as he added, “Not that you eat much cake anymore.”

It wasn't cake.

•  •  •

Coach lined up receivers on both sides of the field. Each receiver would get four balls thrown to him with nobody covering: first a slant, then a curl, a deep post pattern, a straight fly down the sideline.

On the fifth throw, one of the other kids in the line would come out to cover, and you were supposed to do whatever you thought you had to do to get open.

Teddy was hoping for Jack the first time through but got Bruce Kalb instead. Teddy caught the slant pass just fine, Bruce leading him beautifully. But then he missed the next three, the ball either going off his hands or through them all three times. It felt like his hands were on backward.

When Mike O'Keeffe came out to cover him, Teddy gave him a good head fake to the outside and got inside position. He cut to the middle of the field, about twenty yards from Bruce. But the ball was slightly underthrown. Mike read it better—and sooner—than Teddy did.

Mike stepped in and intercepted the ball cleanly.

“Gotta fight for that ball,” Coach Gilbert said. “Gotta want it, eighty-one.”

Then he turned away, blew his whistle, and said, “Next.”

Teddy put his head down, ran to the back of the line on the opposite side of the field, felt himself clenching and unclenching his fists, worried that he might have blown his shot at making the team already.

He didn't realize Gus was behind him until he heard Gus say, “Remember what Aaron Rodgers said to Packers fans that time after he played, like, his worst game? R-E-L-A-X.”

“I
can't
,” Teddy said. “You know how Coach just said you gotta want it? I want it too much.”

“Just let it happen,” Gus said.

“I'm gonna happen myself right into Pop Warner,” Teddy said. “That's what's gonna happen.”

He didn't get Jack in the next round either, getting Danny Hayes instead. Teddy didn't do much better this time. The slant bounced off his shoulder pad, Danny threw high on the curl. When he tried to run his fly pattern, Teddy stumbled as he reached for the ball and ended up doing a solid, gold-plated face-plant.

He did get up and manage to make a catch in coverage. Danny threw high again as Teddy came back a little for the ball, but Teddy was able to go up as high as he could and get his hands on the ball and keep them there.

But he knew all Coach and the other parents were going to remember was him falling down.

I waited all summer for this
, he thought.

All year, really.

And now I can't even get out of my own way.

Before the last round, Coach gave them another water break. Jack came over and pulled Teddy away from where the other kids were getting their drinks.

“I'm thirsty,” Teddy said.

“Not now, you're not,” Jack said.

He walked him even farther away, so nobody could hear them.

“I know what you're thinking,” Jack said.

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do,” Jack said. “But this thing isn't over yet. You can still pull this out.”

“Every other kid on this field is playing better than me,” Teddy said.

“Not true,” Jack said. “That last catch you made, hardly anybody out here could go up and get it like that. You're still bigger than the other guys at your position, you're still fast. And you've still got great hands.”

“Hands of stone.”

Jack ignored him. “And now you've got me coming out of the bull pen to throw to you, which means the way I've been throwing to you at school, and the way I'll be throwing to you all season.”

“You headed down to Pop Warner too?” Teddy said.

Then Gus was with them. It was the same as always. All for one.

“Well,” Gus said, “he may have a lousy attitude, but he hasn't lost his sense of humor.”

“Well, and my mind,” Teddy said.

This time around he would be the last to go. So he watched Gus catch all five balls Jack threw to him, and Mike O'Keeffe do the same.

Mike went right before Teddy. As he was running back with the football, Jack jogged over, leaned close to Teddy, and said, “On your last one, when the guy is covering you, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

Jack grinned. “Go long,” he said.

“You want
that
to be the last thing Coach is going to see today?”

“Yup,” Jack said. “Stop. And go long.”

Teddy told himself to focus all his attention, and all his energy, on Jack; told himself to remember all their sessions behind Walton Middle, all the hours they'd spent together. He told himself to forget Coach and the evaluators and all the other kids watching.